LETTER FROM THE SQUADRON - 1998
Time flies when you are having fun, or so the saying goes. It also goes quickly when you are extremely busy and stationed on an island outpost in Northwest Wales. It has been a year in which the Sqn has tried to produce as many pilots as possible without lowering standards, with limited aircraft (more later), with ever changing staff and with the vagaries of the Anglesey weather to cope with. Where to start?
Let’s start with the good news. So far we have been pretty successful. The quality of graduating pilots, or certainly those that make it to the advanced phase 2 training, has not reduced even if the numbers of successful graduates fluctuates markedly from course to course. The Sqn QFIs are, to a man, committed to ensuring that they provide the best training possible. However, the initial lack of available aircraft, following the contractorization of engineering support at RAF Valley, had a huge impact on our ability to keep up with the course strike rates. However, credit is due to BRAMA who gradually sorted out their procedures and, together with other measures being instigated to improve the life of the Hawk airframe, we are now being provided with as many aircraft as our current manning can cope with. So, as soon as the weather improves, we will be back up to speed.
Changes are taking place in other areas of the Sqn. Instructors continue to come and go. New inexperienced instructors out of CFS training and experienced A2 instructors back to the CFS staff. This is nothing new, but the current manning shortfall and the ‘mirror image experiment’ have exacerbated the situation. It is a delicate balance between maintaining the Sqn experience levels and ensuring the Wing’s assets are evenly spread. Recovery from the ‘mirror image training system’ continues to make steady progress. We are re-learning a lot of lessons previously learnt and subsequently lost. Unfortunately, the re-establishing of corporate knowledge or re-inventing the wheel is not a rapid process.
Apart from regular Sqn functions and the continuous stream of Graduations (although not all of them on time), there have been few other notable social events during the last 12 months. As this was due mainly to the burden of the training task, we hope that this will change during the summer months. Indeed, we have just received authority to re-commence providing a static display at airshows and conducting overseas training flights (OTFs). With weather and training opportunities improving, morale and the quality of instruction should be sustained.
We look forward to seeing Association members at the Annual Reunion or at any of our allocated airshows.
- Squadron Leader Paul Comer.
